By Christopher Dempsey
The moments where it may have crossed Gary Harris’s mind to feel sorry for himself were fleeting. They were gone almost as quickly as they arrived.
But it didn’t have to be that way. There was plenty of chance to let an injury-riddled start of the season sink in and sink his season.
The ailments came early seemingly and never let up. A groin injury in the first preseason game cost him the remainder of the month of training camp and the first four games of the regular season. He returned. Then injury returned with him. Five games after he was back in the lineup came a foot injury. That cost him another four weeks and 16 games.
Return. Exit.
One month after the foot injury came an ankle sprain. And sure, that was relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but the three games it cost Harris pushed his missed contests to more than half (24) of the first 41 of the season.
Now? Now those days seem so long ago.
Harris is quickly putting together his best season in three years as professional with career highs in points (14.2), rebounds (3.0), assists (2.5), shooting percentage (48.1) and 3-point percentage (43.0). His 3-point percentage ranks sixth in the NBA.
And he’s sizzled of late. There was a career-high 25 points in the Nuggets’ win over Brooklyn on Feb. 24. Since the All-Star break he’s averaging 22.3 points on 52 percent from the field and 48 percent from 3-point range.
And it didn’t take the Nuggets long to recognize it and start feeding him the ball. Harris’s usage percentage is up a full four percent since the All-Star break. He’s now being used on 23.8 percent of plays when he’s on the court, and while he credits teammates for finding him for good looks at the basket, he’s also made one key change.
Harris is raising up and taking all the shots available to him. He’s not passing them up.
The combination has been huge. A full 100 percent of his 3-point makes post All-Star have been assisted. Overall, 92.3 percent of his made field goals since the break have been assisted. The reason? Harris is always on the move. Nothing illustrates that fact more than this: 48.9 percent of all of the actions he uses in a game are in three areas – transition, hand offs and cuts, per Synergy. On cuts, Harris is shooting 73.9 percent and averaging 1.439 points per possession in that action, which puts him among the best in the NBA.
No player has recognized that more quickly and has gotten in better sync with Harris than Nikola Jokic. Of Harris’ 186 made field goals this season, Jokic has assisted on 52 of them, or more than a quarter of his makes. No one else has assisted Harris on more than 22 of his field goal makes.
When he’s stationary, Harris can most often be found in the corner, ready to catch and shoot. His most-used action are spot-ups – 23.8 percent of the time – and Harris is shooting 45 percent in those situations. With minimal ball-handling duties to make plays for others, Harris is being used as a shooting guard in the most traditional sense. The Nuggets are putting him in positions to score and Harris is doing just that.
“The shots are going in,” Harris said. “I’ve just got to continue to shoot the shots when I’m open, and continue just to play the right way. I feel like our team has been playing the right way. We’ve been doing a good job of finding each other. So, it’s a credit to other guys of finding me, getting me in the right spots, and just playing team basketball.”
Harris credits the increasing reliability of his shot-making to near daily sessions with Nuggets player development coach John Beckett.
“That’s my guy,” Harris said. “We’re in the gym almost every day, getting in our reps.”
It’s one reason Harris is within striking distance of the team record for 3-point percentage in a season. That’s held by Chauncey Billups, who hit 44.1 percent of his 3-point shots in the 2010-11 season. Harris is one percent behind at 43.0.
And yet he doesn’t settle for them, Malone said.
Harris has played in 17 straight games, his longest on-court stretch of the season. That’s allowed him to round into form.
“I’m just getting my feet back wet,” Harris said. “I was just trying to get into rhythm, get into basketball rhythm. And just trying and do whatever I can to help out the team and do whatever they want me to do.
“I knew I could have been better than I was last year. And I just wanted to continue to improve and I just continued to work on my shot.”
And he’s enjoying the ride.
“I’m just happy to be playing, man,” Harris said. “Just never taking it for granted. After missing out most of the beginning of the season, just being able to play. I’m just out here having fun.”